GENEVA, October 14 /PRNewswire/ -- WISeKey and The Association for International Mobility (AIM), a WISeKey-backed nonprofit organization, are proud to announce that AIM won support among 60 governments for an ambitious digital ID program for the world's often undocumented migrant workers. The agreement is a major step forward on a pledge WISeKey made at the Clinton Global Initiative to bring mobile banking to millions of poor people.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20091014/363133 )

After a two-day panel discussion with business, government and activist leaders on human mobility organized by AIM at the World Public Forum's seventh annual Dialogue of Civilizations in Rhodes, Greece, in October, the World Public Forum adopted the ground-breaking Rhodes Declaration on Human Mobility. The World Public Forum is an independent, nonprofit, and non-government organization headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and dedicated to creating effective and democrat instruments to solve global problems. There are over 200 million migrants in the world, 49 percent of whom are women, according to the International Organization for Migration. These migrants created $337 billion in remittances flows in 2007, sending $251 billion to developing countries.

The Rhodes Declaration calls for governments and corporations to pool their resources to help create a Labor Mobility Index, which will in turn help them develop better policies for the vast and growing mobile labor populations around the world.

Representatives from 60 countries, which ranged from the US and Russia to Turkey, India, and Egypt, at the conference in Greece also agreed to support the pursuit of technology solutions for migrant diasporas to better manage their identities, finances, and relationships with both host countries and their native lands as they move across borders. WISeKey, a Swiss security software firm, pledged to contribute its expertise in digital ID software and services for mobility platforms to help migrant workers use new cell phones and ID cards to manage their finances, remittances, and government services needs.

"This Declaration is a great milestone," said Carlos Moreira, WISeKey's chairman and CEO. "WISeKey is as much a social enterprise as it is a technology company. The opportunity to create digital ID solutions for migrant workers and the communities they work and live in is an important one. We applaud AIM and the Rhodes Declaration. The right secure mobile ID platform will transform millions of lives for the better and be a significant plus for competitive workers and countries throughout the global economy."

"AIM is proud that the interesting discussions in its panel have resulted in a comprehensive Declaration on Human Mobility," said Brunson McKinley and Anne-Marie Buschman-Petit, AIM's co-chairs. "As co-chairs of AIM we commit ourselves to taking the declaration forward by coordinating the implementation of its recommendations. We believe that this Declaration is an important first step for the creation of an improved international framework for mobile populations. Diasporas are growing rapidly and their contributions to the global economy are still not sufficiently recognized."

Declaration on the AIM website: http://www.aim-international.org

ABOUT WISeKey SA

WISeKey is the leading custom secure ID software and services provider in the world. Founded and based in Geneva, Switzerland, since 1999, WISeKey operates in six continents, and its clients and partners have included companies like Microsoft and Telefonica, the Spanish telecommunications giant, and governments of Geneva and Seychelles.

ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION FOR INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY (AIM)

AIM is a Geneva, Switzerland,-based independent, nonprofit, and non-governmental organization dedicated to an open, efficient, fair and sustainable system of human mobility worldwide. Its members include Manpower, Backer MacKenzie, and International Organization for the Security of Electronic Transactions (OISTE).

    Contact:

    Dimitry Leger
    WISeKey corporate communications director
    dleger@wisekey.com
    +41-22-594-3008

SOURCE WISeKey and The Association for International Mobility (AIM)

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